Conclusions - scientific research and its implications

The organizers of this meeting felt that it would be appropriate to have two short papers at the end of this volume to summarize the key points that are of relevance to scientists and the insurance and actuarial professions. This was felt to be of particular importance given the very heterogeneous backgrounds of members of the audience at the meeting, namely, scientific, medical, legal, social and financial. The objectives are to summarize the key issues in layman's terms-trying to avoid jargon, exaggeration and a partisan approach. In some ways my task is somewhat easier than Chris Daykin's job, since there are only four scientific and medical presentations compared with seven from the actuarial, social and legal side. I will organize this brief report, which by definition will involve repetition of some of the points made in the scientific and medical papers in this volume, into three areas: (1) introductory comments on demography and evolution relevant to human genetics; (2) the scientific opportunities; and (3) a brief comment on their implications for the health and care of individuals.